Theory Tuesdays is a non-academic platform for theoretical discussion founded, organized and coordinated by artist Philip Matesic since 2009. Participants read beforehand then discuss contemporary art, design, literary, cultural and critical theory texts on a weekly basis, with the texts selected and introduced each week by a different person. The platform has operated under this “Each One, Teach One“ philosophy since its conception.

Session 153: “Design For The Real World” by Victor Papanek

During this first Theory Tuesdays session at the Reseda Lochergut furniture showroom, Philip Matesic presented the preface and chapters “The Myth of the Noble Slob: Design, ‘Art’, and the Crafts” and “Our Kleenex Culture: Obsolescence, Permanence and Value” from the book “Design For The Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change” by Victor Papanek (Pantheon Books, 1971).

“There are professions more harmful than industrial design, but only a very few of them. And possibly only one profession is phonier. Advertising design, in persuading people to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, in order to impress others who don’t care, is probably the phoniest field in existence today. Industrial design, by concocting the tawdry idiocies hawked by advertisers, comes a close second. Never before in history have grown men sat down and seriously designed electric hairbrushes, rhinestone-covered file boxes, and mink carpeting for bathrooms, and then drawn up elaborate plans to make and sell these gadgets to millions of people.” -Victor Papanek